Mission of Mercy

So Eli and I are at work today.
Picture three very large warehouses, if you will. These are joined to each other by little doorways, ceilings are about 35 feet high, and two of the warehouses are filled with miles of steel racking [shelving] upon which sit thousands and thousands of boxes.
The third warehouse is even more exciting than these first two.
It is filled with pallets of boxes, no shelving.
I can guarantee you that if there existed any contest entitled, “Quest-For-The-Most-Boring-Three-Warehouses- Ever-To-Be-Joined-Together-By-Little-Doorways© ,” the place where I work would win, hands down.
So it is late afternoon and Eli and I are working in this place, in Warehouse #2, the middle one.
All of a sudden I hear a chirping sound, and a bird flies through the air, and I yell to Eli, “Look at the bird. Look at the bird.”
But by the time he looked up it was gone. These three seconds have been the most exciting of the entire day, and now they are over. [From 8 till 5, we seriously welcome any signs of outside life].
Soon the bird flies by, far above our heads. Chirping.
I say to Eli, “That poor thing is gonna die in this hellhole.” [I was secretly hoping that he might want to join with me in a rescue attempt.]
“Open the roll-up door,” he says, and so we begin our Mission of Mercy.
I roll up the door and the warehouse is flooded with avian-salvific light. However, the door does not stay up on its own [it’s busted] and because I have to hold it, my arms extended, the bird is scared and will not fly down and out.
So we decided to open the doors to the 3rd warehouse and see if the thing will fly in there [where the roll-up door actually works].
Soon the bird, a sparrow, is flying around in Warehouse #3, and I roll up the door to the blue sky outside.
Where does the bird decide to fly?
To the very extreme opposite end of the place!

So Eli and I start running around like lunatics, trying to shoo the thing out the door.
Each of us are actually giving the bird REASONS as to why it should seriously consider flying out the damn door!
Finally, it gives us one last look, and then, as if it was merely some sort of afterthought… as if it was wondering why we were in such an uproar over nothing, it swooped through the opening.
Free, free at last.
Eli and I let out a whoop and high-fived each other.
[Warehouse guys! They are easily excited!]

Story is not quite over.
Not even five minutes later, I am back in Warehouse #1, retrieving some orders from the computer.
I look up just as a bird flits past me, and again, is off on some kind of erratic flight path all over the least humanly-accessible regions.
I go over to the normal entrance door and open it. Light floods in.
But again, I have to hold the door open, it swings shut on its own, so the wary sparrow keeps swooping down, and then chickening out.
I peer in.
It peers out.
I talk to it.
It says nothing. Just tilts its head like they do.
So, I got behind the door. And just waited.
Soon [amazing how other living things have this innate fear of us, huh?]… the bird launched out on its flight of faith and was gone. Flew right past my head, and shot straight upwards, into the sky.

Now, here is the crazy thing.
I have worked at that boring building for over seven years. In all that time I have never encountered a trapped bird in the place.
But today…. twice?
It seems to me very strange. Very suspicious. I wonder if there is some message in it.
I needed to work off some bad karma? My “good deed” account was in bad shape, so Fate sent me two birds to rescue?
All I know is this. I think Eli and I did the right thing.
I think that our Mission of Mercy today will help us, I really do, if we ever find ourselves in purgatory.
It’s got to count for at least a few days grace!

[By the way, Eli did not believe me when I told him about the second bird.]

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